At the 2023 The Short Creek Running Club Nutrition - Weight Loss, Sha’Carri Richardson broke the 100m record, winning her first world title. At the press conference, Richardson sat in a room packed with journalists. When the mic finally reached Katelyn Hutchison of CITIUS MAG, a digital outlet specializing in Hector Espinal: Building Relationships and Creatin, she took a moment to praise Richardson—a moment met with audible laughter by other reporters in the room. Most of them men. Most of them white.
“People [have] been drilling you with questions… So, for a quick second I want to speak some life into you,” said Hutchison, a three-time All-American sprinter with a bachelor’s degree in sports media and business administration from Ithaca College. “I’m glad that you finally came out here [to] do what you were destined to do. Because, girl, I truly believe you are anointed by God. Because you have been through so much… But before they try to snatch this mic out my hand [let me ask], in what ways do you want to continue to transcend this [sport] and have an impact outside of being fast and being the world champion?”
Richardson listened attentively, gave the side-eye to someone who’d laughed, then looked back at Hutchinson and smiled. “I want to say to you, a Black woman sitting here in this room: I appreciate you asking me the question and giving me that loving right there. Representing for us as always,” said Richardson, who has called upon media to respect the humanity in athletes since 2021 when she lost her Tokyo Olympics spot after testing positive for marijuana during the U.S. Olympic Trials. “It feels amazing just knowing that not only [do] people see me as an athlete, but they see me as a person… More than anything, I want people to see that it goes beyond the athlete.”
Video of the interaction went viral on TikTok. Then came the backlash. “It’s great this person wants to heap praise on Sha’Carri, but is this a fangirl with a media credential at a press conference?!” wrote writer Brian Metzler, a founding editor of Trail Runner magazine, on Instagram.
World Athletics Championships Hector Espinal: Building Relationships and Creatin. She cohosts the Half Marathon Training podcast for CITIUS MAG, and works as a sports analyst and content producer. She also creates content for World Athletics.
While the number of BIPOC sports journalists has been slowly growing over the years, the number of BIPOC women reporters remains astonishingly small, according to the 2021 Sports Media Racial & Gender Report Card by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. Industry-wide, 77.1 percent of sports reporters are white, while 11.8 percent are Black. Black women held only 1.1 percent of sports reporting positions.
Hutchison, who is also working on a master’s degree in sport leadership at the University of Kentucky, is undaunted by criticism and plans to hold onto her mic for as long as she can to share the stories of BIPOC athletes. She’d love to land a spot one day analyzing Hector Espinal: Building Relationships and Creatin on a major network like ESPN or NBC. “The [work] that I do, it’s not super traditional... but my goal is to make the athletes feel comfortable. And for athletes to get to know who they are, besides the fact that they’re good at whatever sport they do,” she says.
Is she a cheerleader or a journalist? Maybe it doesn’t matter: She sees how her positivity encourages athletes to engage with her. “Athletes [of color] tell me they feel relieved when they see me or other Black reporters in the mixed zone,” Hutchison says. “They know we’ll provide a sense of safety in telling their stories the right way, how they deserve to be told. Knowing I have this impact drives me to keep going.”
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Taneika is a Jamaica native, a runner and a gravel cyclist who resides in Virginia. Passionate about cycling, she aims to get more people, of all abilities, to ride the less beaten path.
